How HP Is Redefining Branded Content With Impact Storytelling

By Jordan P. Kelley, Content Director, Brand Storytelling

As brands continue to diversify their marketing and advertising efforts to include branded content, many often take the same approach to generating social video, episodic series, and even films as they do traditional ads, and to poor effect. The brands achieving the best results in branded content will be the first to tell you that the ad making model cannot simply be overlaid on top of brand storytelling initiatives. Instead, brands must reposition those within their organizations dedicated to brand storytelling by modeling the practices of great storytellers like filmmakers, production studios, and journalists.

This is the case for The Garage by HP. The Garage is home to HP’s brand storytelling and brand journalism efforts, which cover a broad range of categories relevant to HP’s brand purpose and values. Visit The Garage and you’ll find stories on innovation, arts and design, and modern life, all of which share a common theme: impact. This includes Generation Impact, a series of short films from The Garage that feature young people utilizing technology in their efforts to create positive change in their communities and in the world. The pilot of the series, “The Coder” sets the tone for Generation Impact, shining a light on a father and daughter’s unique journey to empowering multiple generations in their community.

Brand Storytelling 2022: A Sanctioned Event of Sundance Film Festival, hosted a conversation with Jay Jay Patton, subject of the film “The Coder”, along with HP’s Head of Corporate Brand Content & Creative Angela Matusik and the film’s director Samantha Knowles, moderated by Courageous CCO Otto Bell. The group discussed how the film has played a part in continuing to change Jay Jay’s life, what it meant to make the film for both Knowles and HP, and how at the center of it all is the pursuit of wide-spread, positive, lasting impact.

When Jay Jay Patton was a toddler, her father Antoine went to prison. Intent on building a skillset that would serve him and his family upon his release, Patton learned to code. When he got out and he and Jay Jay were able to spend time together, Jay Jay took an interest in coding, starting out learning from her father and then teaching herself. During Antoine’s time in prison, it became apparent to Jay Jay and her family that there were many difficulties presented as part of the process of corresponding with a loved one in jail. Antoine and Jay Jay used their coding educations to build Photo Patch, a foundation with a website and app (the app developed by Jay Jay herself) that allows families to send photos and letters to incarcerated loved ones. Their business venture and Jay Jay’s coding prowess also led to the launch of Unlock Academy; a program dedicated to empowering people by giving them the tools to advance their interest and opportunities in tech.

As Jay Jay and Photo Patch began to get press coverage and garner support from a larger audience, the story caught the attention of the folks at The Garage by HP. “We had an idea to make a series about young people who were using technology to make the world a better place,” said Matusik. The Garage had already partnered with Stick Figure Productions to bring in the on-camera storytelling support they knew they needed to properly capture HP’s vision for the series. It was important to HP to tell a story not just with a clear arc, but one that would capture a specific feeling – the kind of feeling that audiences naturally respond to because of the merits of the story being told. When the team at HP heard Jay Jay’s story, they knew it was one they wanted to amplify and made it the first film of the series.

HP had found a subject that would help the brand achieve its goal: to tell an uncommon, diverse story that would ultimately inspire. Stick Figure productions went about finding the right storyteller for the job – Samantha Knowles. Knowles, who seeks to inspire in the stories she tells, was drawn not only to Jay Jay’s tale of a black empowered female working to further empower her community, but also the father-daughter story at its core. “I feel really lucky to be working in this time where brands will reach out to filmmakers in the effort to tell really compelling, original stories,” said Knowles. With all the pieces in place, the film was produced as the flagship installment in the Generation Impact series.

The short film’s impact has been proven by the responses it has garnered from the public. Jay Jay and her father have gone on to have their story told in print and have continued to do press and public interviews, garnering them even more donations to support their cause. Meanwhile, HP has gone on to make several more episodes of the Generation Impact series. After Jay Jay, the series became about trying to recapture that feeling again and again – the feeling of finding inspiration in another’s commitment to action.

HP’s successes are many in the making of the Generation Impact series. The brand began by spotlighting a great subject, not just relevant to its brand but also connected to its brand purpose. Aligning those two elements makes this storytelling endeavor for this brand make sense, and for all those reasons garners an emotional response from the audience. Most importantly, that emotional response is one that has moved many to action, elevating the series from simple branded content to the level of impact storytelling. In doing so, The Garage by HP has demonstrated its own value to the brand, carving out a unique space in the brand’s marketing and advertising initiatives and excelling in it.